Episodes behind Italy's Oscar-nominated migrant epic 'Io Capitano' proved too graphic for final cut
ABC News
A migrant's epic journey over African deserts, through illegal prisons and across the Mediterranean Sea in a smugglers’ boat informed Italian director Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated film “Io Capitano.”
CASTEL VOLTURNO, Italy -- Mamadou Kouassi’s searing, epic journey over African deserts, through illegal prisons and across the Mediterranean Sea in a smugglers’ boat informed Italian director Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated film “Io Capitano.” Some episodes that the Ivorian migrant witnessed on his three-year odyssey were too strong to make the final cut.
Garrone’s film, which is nominated in the best international feature film category, traces the journey of two teenage boys who follow the migrant route from Senegal across the Niger desert to Libya, where they board a rusty smugglers’ boat packed with migrants.
Smugglers force one of the teenagers to “captain” the boat, because as a minor he won't be jailed in Italy.
In the movie, no one dies on the perilous passage. But on Kouassi’s boat, “people died. And I was lucky to survive.”
Kouassi, who completed his journey in 2008 and advised Garrone on the film, provided horrific details of torture that contribute to the film's powerful message, including prisoners being burned and beaten, as well as his experience as a slave laborer working as a mason on the desert villa of a wealthy Libyan.
